Song of The Day: Shooting Star - Artist: Bad Company

The past couple of nights I’ve gotten out my telescope to view the night sky. Winter time is a wonderful time for viewing stars, galaxies, and nebulae. Some may not realize how easy it is to see the Andromeda Galaxy and the Orion Nebula with just a modest-sized telescope–even a pair of good binoculars. Although books and articles correctly point out that they can be seen with the “naked eye” as well, their viewing with the naked eye can be limited by light pollution. Here is a collage of three composite astrophotos that I took last night:

The moon was bright, but was slightly clipped (waning gibbous) after a full moon earlier in the day (i.e., 25 minutes after midnight). I decided to snap a shot of it first to get started. The craters, Tyco on the bottom and Copernicus about half-way up, are easily identifiable.

The other pictures in the collage are of the Orion Nebula and of the Trapezium up-close.

Astronomy and astrophotography are great fun. In the future I plan to provide a review of my gear and methods, but there is plenty of good information on the Web for those that want to stargaze.

Perhaps you can ask Santa for a telescope for Christmas? :) (i.e., if you’ve been good of course…).

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